November 13th!!!

 

That’s our hard target date for the first taping of ADA Majlis, to be broadcast across Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, and beyond, for starters.  Our focus will be the results of the US presidential election and it’s impact on Azerbaijan.  That may not sound like a hot topic to most, but how the next president deals with Russia, Iran, Iraq, and energy issues, will have big consequences here.  Our new venture is generating a lot of interest among media and political types here in Baku, some of it the result of this blog.         

Ambassador Anne Derse

On Friday evening, I attended a small event at the residence of the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Anne Derse, honoring local high school students just back from their year abroad in the United States.  The Ambassador said she, too, was excited about ADA Majlis, but she was equally interested in figuring out a way to get The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer broadcast in Baku.

Destination: Doha!

The ADA’s primary inspiration for promoting debate and discussion on television in Azerbaijan are The Doha Debates.  They are broadcast by the BBC several times a year from another oil-rich country, Qatar, in the Persian Gulf.

Doha, capital of Qatar

It’s format is styled after the debates by the Oxford Union Society in which a question is posed, argued, and voted on by the participating audience.  I contacted Alexandra Willis, the producer of the program, and she issued an invitation to come to Doha to watch the next taping on October 28th.  As it turns out, the First Ladies of the two countries are very good friends, and Ambassador Pashayev has some close diplomatic contacts there.  Everyone at ADA would like go.  So, it looks like a side trip to Doha.

I had hoped to present video I produced of the exquisite handcrafted carpets unique to Azerbaijan.  However, the internet has been painfully slow, taking up to two hours to upload the video and, twice, I have received “error” messages 90 minutes into the process.  Hopefully tomorrow.